Where are the gods when it hurts?
by Okami Metallium
Summary: Looking back on the past, Zelgadiss wonders if everything he's endured was worth it. Dark fic.


Where are the gods when it hurts...  
  
I sit here, staring at nothing in particular, losing myself in the darkness of my own mind. The stump that I sit on is hard and cold beneath me. Unyielding. There is nothing, and no one to see my suffering. There is no one who cares enough. I feel almost as if I'm drowning, sinking into a swamp of my own design. Every time I drown a painful feeling, or some new and horrible memory into that stinking sinkhole, I lose a little of myself.  
  
I can almost picture it, an abstract whirl of shadows and darkness, stewing in the depths of my heart and mind... dark... damp... cold... and ugly. I suppose that it's only right for the outside to look as bad as the inside now isn't it? How befitting... as soon as the change of what I was into what I am occurred, so did my mind change into something as hideous as what I look like.  
  
It's dim now, and chill, the sun just beginning to set in a multitude of vibrant colors. The forest surrounds me, and looms over my head like some great, mocking beast making fun of my plight. Staring... always stareing. I hate it when people stare... it's almost as if they are trying to look through my flesh and bone to look into my soul, which is fully as ugly as my outside. Then they seem to scorn me.  
  
Do you know what it feels like to have small children flee from you in terror? Or what it's like to hear fully grown men and women take one look at you and scream, "It's a monster!!" or "Oh my gods, what is it?!" ...no... I suppose that you wouldn't, would you? After all, it isn't every day that someone is changed into a living creature of nightmare... something that looks like a mockery of a human, walking around in a mockery of a human's life.  
  
Little do they know, that this... creature... this... thing, used to be human once. I can still remember it. The sun warm on my skin, the scent of flowers on the spring air, the wind brushing through my hair, in a almost lovers caress. I can remember the fields, and the cabin where I was born. I can remember the scent of hay, and of threshing.  
  
There's mother, standing in the doorway, a basket full of freshly baked bread cooling on the window sill, and father, trying to sneak a loaf for himself before dinner. It was just the three of us. These things are only vague memories to me dim and clouded. Grey, and seeming to wither, and darken as time passes and the fumes of the swamp in my soul seeming to eat at the memories hungrily, like a starving wolf will feed on the remains of something long since dead.  
  
Death... now there's something I'm very familiar with. Mother and father died. Bandits killed them un-mercilessly, and ransacked the house, taking everything of any value. The only reason that I am even here today is because I hid in the loft.... Sometimes I wish that I had died that night.  
  
I can still remember the look of fear that was plastered on my mothers face, as I buried her, and my father, digging with my bear hands until my hands became raw and began to blister, and finally to bleed. The ground was hard and frozen then, and as I lay them in the ground, snow started to fall. I was alone, and freezing. I finally gathered up enough courage to go after them.  
  
To seek out and attempt to destroy the ones that had destroyed my life. After many weeks of traveling, I was near crazed with cold, and starvation, only my burning desire to exact revenge driving me on. I finally found them, but they only laughed, and beat me until I blacked out. When I came to, they were gone, and I was unable to move.  
  
It was then that I was found. A priest clad all in red. Rezo... the wise man of the age came to my aid. He healed me of my wounds, and fed me. Over time, he came to learn my story. It was then that my life began to go to hell. He offered me power... the power to defeat those that annihilated everything that I had held dear.  
  
With an offer as tempting as that, how could I refuse? It took him time, time to create his magic. I started to train with a sword. Learning techniques and things that I could use later. With every stroke of the blade, I imagined a bandit falling under my blade. I imagined myself fighting bravely against the bandits, and defeating the brigands with the power that Rezo bestowed on me.  
  
It was then that Rezo came to me, and gave me the power I so desired... but at a price. I could only think about what Rezo had done to me... changing me into this... being. I sought out the bandits then, this was their fault, this was their doing. If they had never killed my parents, I would still have my life!  
  
Fighting at a distance seems so clear and clean. Honorable, something that brings glory and power. I had never killed a man before. The blood drenched my hands and sword, I didn't know someone could bleed so much. Was this the feeling that those people had then they had killed my parents? That since of bloodthirsty power?  
  
I became sick, but my body seemed to take over from they're, parrying blades, and attacking. I could numbly feel the blood on my face, and hear the grate of their blades against my stone hide. I laughed then, an insane laughter. I was killing people, just as they had killed my parents.  
  
I killed them down to the last man. I didn't care anymore, I hated the world. I had my revenge. Once I killed them, I went back, and even attempted to kill Rezo. I failed... miserably. He bound me with so many gias's and spells that I couldn't even raise a hand to him.  
  
My revenge was cold. Now that I had accomplished that, there was nothing left. I couldn't defeat Rezo. I didn't have the power to... and he was the only one that could possibly change me back. He mistreated me, locked me in rooms, and left me there for months, in the dark lonely places. He was cruel; teasing me almost like someone would tease a dog on a chain.  
  
I was angry, always angry. Time passed, I met a woman named Lina. And through that time, she her friend, and I defeated Rezo, utterly destroying him. The day had been won, and we had incidentally saved the world. I saved the world again, and a third time, with the help of Lina and the others. Still...nothing seems to change.  
  
I defended the world... I am a freak.... I have fought against hundreds of monsters, and three dark lords... and I am still something unnatural. I gave everything I had... everything I am, was, and ever will be... for what? To protect people that hate me, and degridate me because I have stone for skin. I hate it all.  
  
Sometimes I wonder if it was ever worth it. All the pain, the endless mind numbing struggle. Is it really worth the effort to try and regain my humanity? My head lowers slightly, the bugs droning in my ear, filling the silence with their insessant buzzing.  
  
Idoly I contemplate the meaning of my existance. It was slow in coming home, but gradually I am coming to realise that I am one of the few that were made to suffer, so that others may live their lives happily. Small comfort if you ask me. Since the defeat of Dark star... there hasn't even been a crumb of comfort.  
  
There was not an inn for miles that would take me. There is not a mercinary band that would hire me. I spend all of my time hunting, like some... animal... for the food that keeps me alive. The ground is my bed, the moss my blankets. Not even a small fire to warm the nights.  
  
My heart starts to ache now, although I would never admit it. The solitude eats at my mind. I can only sit, and contemplate. The nights are when it's the worse. In the darkness, the silence. All my past sins come to haunt me, to curse me with reminders of what once was, but will never be again.  
  
So here I sit, in a deserted forest, alone. After everything that I did... it's still the same. There is no one who cares. No one to tell me it's going to be right. No warm arms to come home to. The only thing that waits for me is the swamp that is slowly devouring, drowning, strangling....  
  
Tell me...  
  
Where are the gods when it hurts.... 


End file.
